I’ve switched to bold text for Janis, and June while I’m at it. That’s why the posting date changed, but there is no content change, if you read this posting before I made the switch.
I work mostly in Firefox, where color=orange was fine unbolded. But I just thought to check in Safari, for some of you Apple users, and it doesn’t look so good, kind of thin and hard to read. IE was ok, about the same as Firefox, Chrome not so good, closer to Safari though not as thin.
So all in all, why cause eyestrain; I went back and globally bolded for this re-post, and will continue with it that way for them.
Janis, still chuckling, snorts in mid-gulp of ale, and stands for a moment, not breathing at all, eyes watering. Then she swallows a few times and takes a sip to clear her throat. Recovered, she points at June, and says
{Janis}My Lords and Ladies and Masters and Mistresses, giving a sidelong glance at Sable at that point
{Janis}our Most Excellent Inns Executive, June, is the reason we’re all calling each other these titles. I’m just Janis, to my friends. And I’ve never heard Sable addressed with any title, not even Mister, except maybe by the police… um, town watch, in Meridian. You know how they can be. So I’m just fine with calling you Sheerak, June will take care of calling you Lady Sheerak, I’m sure, on my behalf. And you can just be Ror. And you, she says to the Pixie,
{Janis}can be… Captain Vir, the Merciful, Captain of the Resolute and King of the Unclaimed Sea, though you may have to fight a few sea Deities for that last part of your title. I’m sure you’re up to it. She grins at him, raises her mug, turns to June, and starts to give her a toast,
{Janis}Here’s to June, but June quickly raises her hand, palm out, to cut Janis off, as June’s cheeks color.
{June}Yes, thank you, Janis, that’s quite enough, I’m sure you are about to say many flattering things about me. Too many. Then she turns to Ror, some trepidation in her eyes.
{June}That distinctive aroma… it’s Dumath Kharrassch you’re drinking, isn’t it? An excellent choice, I’ll grant you that, but Sable… I admire your fortitude, but that brew has laid out Dragons, long before Dwarves. Before all of you are dozing on the furniture here, I had better move you into the conference room, if that’s all right with the Empress.June eases herself from the desktop back into her desk chair, and touches the large, clear Crystal Ball in a stand to her right near the edge of the desktop, next to the pile of papers she had stacked. She says to the Ball,
{June}My Lady?After a moment, the Ball facing June suddenly spills golden light onto her face and the wall behind her. There is a roll like thunder, followed by a cascade of crashing clatters, and then a voice comes through the Ball in the echoing aftermath, excited, like the tinkling of bells.
{Star}Hi, June! You’ve caught up with me in my lab, I have finally gotten to work on that wonderful idea you had about Fire Candy in different colors for the Inner and Lower Planar customers at Inn Champagne, and it’s close to working! I’ve even worked out different flavors of flame! But they’re still not stable enough to serve, they sometimes ignite and will char the table top. Even more interesting, if diners nearby have drinks with flammable vapors, booom!! I just simulated that in the lab, it really was spectacular, dishes and glassware flying everywhere, and I’m starting to clean up the mess right now. This candy could be weapons grade!! But then we probably shouldn’t put them in candy dishes, that’s not what you had in mind. The voice ends in an excited laugh.
{Star}What an interesting experiment!!June flinches reflexively.
{June}My Lady, I didn’t contact you about the Fire Candy, though thank you for that… dramatic update. Her voice is wry.
{June}Janis collected Sable back from Factol Montgomery of the Sensates, and another she looks up at Vir
{June}make that two, others responded to the posting… you asked if Janis would like to distribute it in front of the Sensates’ Civic Festhall and they came with her back to here. And another just came in the door; a Dwarf named Ror, a Hand of Dumathoin from His Realm in Concordant Opposition, has arrived and said he felt drawn here for reasons he did not know, but he said Dumathoin must have felt Metromagic has some task that would benefit from Ror’s skills, and is in Dumathoin’s interests. The Hand also inquired about a new Hand of Dumathoin who works for Metromagic, and said she is an Elf. I suspect that’s yourself. Master Ror carries Dumathoin’s Touch upon him. Quite a bit of it, she concludes.
While June talked, sounds of sweeping and clattering came from the Ball, but the noise stops when June mentions the Hand of Dumathoin.
{Star}Ah. The Master Of Secrets Under The Mountain. I think Dumathoin is the craftiest of the Old Deities, and I’ve been pulled this way and that by His Thought recently, helping with three different wars around Durendold including one with the Illithids, and recruiting aid from several Outer Planes that will be to His benefit. I doubt He’s merely doing a return favor by sending us a Hand to help with the Illithids at the Rock. Perhaps He sees the wisdom of setting them back there to set them back everywhere; it’s seemed so to me. Well, whatever His net of reasons that He is casting, if it pleases you, you might tell Ror for me that he is more than welcome, and I look forward to meeting him and shaking Hand to Hand. Perhaps they can all go to the Rock of Bral and confer at the Trading Company, and I’ll meet them there, if it pleases them to do so. There is a pause, and then she chuckles and continues.
{Star}Wait, I have a delightful idea. The Illithid will be watching the Trading Company for signs, they always watch, just as I always invite watchers on the Illithid Embassy to let me know what they see.
But… Wings of Chartreuse is in emergency drydock at Bral, the ship took heavy damage on a patrol with two other Man-o-War Windblossoms when they met up with a standard squadron of four Neogi DeathSpiders, each attended by four MindSpiders. Unfortunately with those odds they had to destroy the Neogi without much chance of rescuing the slaves on board, and all three of our ships suffered some damage but no permanent casualties. So the crew has volunteered for other assignments for a while and are off around the Armada, training other ships with our latest little surprises, like Contingency weaponry. The crew will be coming back to Bral, and if they come through the Trading Company offices, and the Illithid are as watchful as ever, maybe the Illithid will think that the volunteers for my next strike, if there is to be one, will be military from the Armada instead of freelancers. The Illithid Dreadnoughts have all sorts of battle plans to deal with Armada forces, so a little misdirection could foul their preparations. They might even think we intend to assault the slave shipments instead of the compound, or catch them in transit, and divide their forces. I always like to move my opponent’s pieces on the game board as well as my own. She laughs.
{Star}Cat and mouse… and Polymorph the mouse.{Star}So if it pleases them to plan in the conference room at Sigil instead of coming to Bral right away…There, I’ve just put a map in the Communications Ball in the conference room, and if it pleases Janis to show it to them, they could begin now, if they like. I’ll get back to cleaning up here. I expected Sable to sleep after three straight days awake with Erin, so I was going to meet him at Inn Champagne when he woke up in a while, but now with Ror there… It begins. The sounds of sweeping start again, punctuated by clatters.
Janis has walked around to stand behind June, in the wash of golden light.
{Janis}Sure, Star, I’ll show them the map. Take your time cleaning up, honey, no problem. You’re only missing a Dumath Kharrassch party, courtesy of Ror. The sweeping stops, then suddenly resumes, a lot more vigorously. Bells of laughter comes tinkling out of the Ball.
June touches the Ball, and the golden glow and laughter cut off. She waves her left hand over her shoulder at the twenty feet of blank wall behind her between the desk and the neat, long row of dark wood filing cabinets on the far wall.
{June}There are more pitchers and glassware inside for beverages. I’ll arrange for a breakfast buffet to be brought in from Inn Champagne, croissants, muffins, breads, flavored butters, cheeses, fruits, nuts, meat pies, fruit pies. If you are hungry for something else, please just ask.Janis looks blissful.
{Janis}Hobbit pies? That can’t be serious question, why would we want to eat anything else? She turns and walks straight at the blank wall to the side of June’s desk in full stride. Just before she touches it, an archway appears.
The sudden entryway is near the rear right-hand corner of the room, just beyond June’s desk, and passes into the front right-hand corner of the room beyond, on its shorter wall. The room is a rectangular conference room, about thirty feet by forty-five or fifty feet, and fifteen to twenty feet high. The room is otherwise plain, with no apparent door or other architectural feature. It is lit to a comfortably bright reading level for human eyes, by soft light from everywhere; there are no shadows in the room, not even under the large conference table in the center of the room.
The walls and ceiling are covered in a repeated pattern of large, square, polished wood panels, with raised centers and gently scrolled edges, a medium-light oak colored wood with a complex darker grain. A long woodgrain tabletop stretches away from the entrance across the polished floor. The floor and table are in a slightly darker wood that matches the grain of the walls; both floor and table have a lighter grain highlight that matches the lighter wood coloring of the walls. They are an elegant inverse coloration of each other, floor and table against walls and ceiling.
The table is about ten feet by twenty-five feet, oriented the same way the room is: its long dimension runs with the room's longest side. It is almost centered in the room from side to side, perhaps a couple of feet closer to the lefthand wall than the righthand wall. It is not centered in the room from front to back. Its foot is at the end of the room where the entryway was, and is about fifteen feet from the wall. Its head end is closer to the wall at the other end of the room, about ten feet from the wall.
There are a variety of armchairs and stools around the table and along the walls, in many combinations of shapes, sizes, and coverings, upholstered, leather, stone, and a few in metal, designed for the comfort of many shapes and sizes of creatures, though most of the furnishings are in medium to small sizes for humans to halflings.
Along the walls, there are smaller tables, trays, crystal and gold, pitchers and goblets, gold-trimmed carafes filled with a clear colorless liquid, and other simple but elegant furnishings.
Looking clockwise around the table, each of the eleven seats is unique: At the foot of the table, an armchair upholstered in red leather and octagonal ruby buttons, in the center of the ten-foot end. To its left, a thickly padded stool upholstered in bright violet leather with gold trim, at the foot of the table near the corner. On the left side of the table just around that corner, an ornately carved, tall straight-backed chair with raised arms in several colors of inlaid wood, sized larger than human. Further up the table on the left, a very comfortable-looking, very large armchair upholstered in a soft tan leather, almost as big as a couch but still a single seat. At the head of the table at the far end of the room, on the left another tilting armchair in black leather with seven heavy legs, human sized, is pushed back; the top surface of the table is slightly scuffed in front of it. To its right, a contoured, shorter armchair with a very broad seat, in a glittering silvery metal, is pushed in.
On the right side of the table, almost at the head, a tall, blue leather upholstered armchair with buttons in gems of many colors and shapes, with a Crystal Ball to its left on a small metal stand. To the left, down the right side of the table, a green leather upholstered armchair with overstuffed, comfortable padding and fine wood trim. Next, a tallish stool in silver-gray ash, with a comfortably contoured and polished black stone top, near the corner at the foot end. To its left, a gold-upholstered stool standing on clear, cut crystal legs like gems, scattering light, almost at the corner of the table, between the foot of the table and the wall. There are other chairs and stools along the walls, all different.
Janis walks into the room, picks up the gold stool with gemlike legs from the right side of the table, carries it along the table and sets it down in front of the Crystal Ball, pushing the blue upholstered chair out of the way further toward the upper corner of the table. She touches the Ball and an image appears in it. Setting both hands on the Ball, she stretches them apart and the image expands out from the Ball. Janis rotates her hands, continuing to push them apart, and the image takes on Dimensions. The image has annotations and colors; a map. She pushes the top edge down till the image floats above the table, easy to see.
She looks around to make sure everyone has come in, except June, and as the last one enters, the archway vanishes. The wood paneled wall is unbroken.
{Janis}Now that we’re private, and Scryblocked, here you go, all, gather round if you want to see where you are volunteering to assault.
Looking around the table and meeting each one’s eyes in turn, Janis addresses everyone. Her casual manner in the anteroom is gone; she is all business, with military bearing, a professional officer delivering a crisp briefing.
{Janis}You're signed up for a fairly short stint of duty, I expect, regarding an impending attack on the well-organized and deadly efficient Illithid slaver operation, deep inside the Rock of Bral. You'll be paid pretty well, if that’s your interest, but from what I have seen, your own personal feelings were quite in favor of taking on this assignment; this kind of unconscionable organization just isn't to be tolerated. It's what brought you to lead this kind of life in the first place.
Over the last week or so, Star has been putting the word out for companions and more may be on their way from distant ports, worlds, and planes, by spelljammer ship, magic, or other means. You here are the lucky ones, enjoying Hobbit pies, For the others, if they arrived at Bral, they were escorted under cover directly to quarters. The only others they would have seen besides each other are those who work for The Trading Company there, that’s Metromagic’s presence on the Rock, and I’m confident they look like they wouldn't be given to conversation. No one will have visited the city of Bral or even seen outside the compound; security has been tight for obvious reasons.
I can tell you about the Rock of Bral in general terms. I haven’t been into the city much myself. Star can brief you about the situation there, the politics, and any other questions about surface life there that you may have. I won’t waste your time with speculation.
Bral is a well-known asteroid city, a mercantile hub for all of Wildspace, ruled by a Prince, Andru, whose policy is peace for prosperity, meaning anything for money. Though slavery is officially outlawed, so is much of the economy on Bral, where anything that can be shipped can be bought. In that way it’s a lot like Sigil, except it serves the inhabitants of Prime Material Plane worlds with Spelljammers, rather than the inhabitants of the Outer Planes.
The only truly serious offense on Bral that will get action by the Prince, and everyone else who lives there, is fooling with or fouling their limited atmosphere. Everyone will cooperate to hunt down a party using too much in the way of Fire-based spells, or spells like Cloudkill.
The dark of its history, sorry, that was Sigil jargon, the hidden truth of its history is Bral was a Forge, a gigantic Dwarven Spelljamming mountain from ancient times, abandoned when the ores ran out. Its interior is riddled with tunnels and caverns, mostly beautifully hand-hewn according to Star, I haven’t seen them myself, for the Dwarves' mining and manufacturing base. Janis looks at Ror, then back to the map, pointing out areas.
{Janis}The oldest Dwarven sections, closest to the surface and near the modern-day Spelljammer docks, were vast underground warehouse complexes, and this is where the Illithids base their operation. The old open-bar cages for goods are ideal slave pens. The underground stream, cycling endlessly to and from the surface lake due to the effects of the Rock's uneven gravity plane… yes, it has flat gravity, not round… supplies fresh water. The Prince won’t like it if you foul the water supply either.
The caverns go on for unmapped miles. Most are unexplored, and most of the curious explorers don't return, except for guess who. Star had to go in there with a lot of Nondetection and other Effects, I didn’t ask and she probably wouldn’t tell me all of it anyway. Her efforts to Scry the underground corridors themselves have been mostly unsuccessful, as have Divinations to find out why. The Illithids are interested only in their defensible area, and consider others' enforced ignorance to be an advantage.
I’ve been told that the Royal family has raided the slavers from time to time, when their political situation would be strengthened by a show of legal force. Lately, Star has been inviting adventuring bands to do the job for them, thus saving Royal expense, so the Prince has closed his eyes to the brief disturbance of the peace that sometimes ensues. After all, the Illithid ambassador can't protest an illegal raid on an illegal operation. Janis chuckles.
{Janis}This time, Star tells me that the Illithids received information from somewhere that there was about to be yet another raid. This was no surprise to them anyway, I’m quite sure; you heard Star say they watch us, we watch them. From what we have seen, they've increased the security, trying to make their underground fortress impregnable. That's why you're here; perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't, but you and the rest of your little high-powered force are going to try.
All of you are at this meeting with each other because apparently the time has arrived for the party to begin to plan in earnest about the coming attack. I saw the look on Star’s face in the Ball when she said to start, it was her “I See The Signs” look, if you know her well enough. I don’t know what Signs she saw, but I would trust her on this, she sees a lot of things that other people don’t. You can ask her what Signs, when she gets here, she’s sure to have a sensible explanation… well, an explanation.
There is a lot of thinking to do, about possible traps and ambushes, magical and non-magical defenses and counterattacks, what to do if slaves are caught in the crossfire... The slaves are what this little game is about, after all, and if you think about it just a bit, you’ll realize that neither side wants to have them dead.
Your intructions are simple, though your task is not: plan as best you can, and coordinate your efforts well; the enemy's strength may be uncertain, but is certainly too strong for any less than best efforts to have a likelihood of success. Feel free to ask questions, to gather whatever information you think you need, but there may not be much available, so be prepared for contingencies, always. Be prepared for the worst. Always.
You can see on the map, only the most commonly used areas have been fortified enough for safe passage; the rest of the tunnels and caverns are in various states of disrepair and ruin. Many tunnels have collapsed, especially in rear areas.
The parts of the Compound in use by the Illithids have been labeled -- the rest of the areas are not in use, either because they are (a) in bad repair, (b) inconvenient and difficult to get to, (c) partially flooded, for some areas near the river, or (d) on the other side of the Rock's gravity plane and therefore seem reversed in gravity. Of course, where the Illithids are now seems reversed in gravity from the viewpoint of someone standing over the other side of the gravity plane.Janis runs her right index finger along the blue area on the map stretching from top left out to the right and around to the bottom.
{Janis}The gravity plane in a lot of this mapped area is rather uneven, and runs very close to floor level. There are some places where it comes up slightly, and several where it dips down; the river follows the gravity plane and its acceleration back and forth as its "up" and "down" oscillate, spiraling the rushing foam crazily around the walls through the rapids in the passages of the uneven rear areas, keeps it flowing. Star offered me a rapids ride through there, but I haven’t taken her up on it yet. She likes ships a lot more than I do. I’m an Air Force girl myself, not Navy. Oh. Air Force is… well, never mind that. Ask me later, if you want to know.
The guards for the open-barred slave pens are mostly Umber Hulks, in some of these lettered areas. If you don’t know about Umber Hulks, Star can tell you all about them. I heard she had some for allies in her latest little war helping Dumathoin’s folk. No wonder she is a Hand of Dumathoin now.
Now listen up. These are the lettered places on the map.
AA is the Auction Block.
This is the public area of the compound; she says it’s the only place that the buyers see. The river enters here from the surface, and buyers are brought down the river by a nice, swanky ferry. The ferry stops at the dock and the buyers are offloaded; they can browse the pens to check out the stock which is on sale that particular day. The large central area there is the small amphitheater where the auction takes place.
Janis points at an area at the top left corner of the map.
{Janis}For the most privileged guests, this island of highly carved and polished rock in the center of the river is supposed to give a scenic, formal area for an elegant dignitaries' reception to admire the glorious Dwarven handiwork throughout this part of the caverns. Even the areas that have been left naturally rough are artistically positioned, framed by ornately carved surroundings. She says negotiations with big buyers for larger groups of slaves are often conducted there, after inspections in the pens are finished.
From what intelligence I’ve heard, the Illithids are neither interested in, nor affected by, the Dwarven artistry, but they do not hesitate to use the business advantage of having some of their customers be awestruck by their surroundings, and consider the advantage to be a fringe benefit of this site for their operations. I’ve done the same with my own business negotiations. Always negotiate from a place of seeming strength if you can, that shows off your power.
Once everyone has their purchases finalized, the buyers reboard the ferry and are taken back up the river to the surface. Most buyers are completely ignorant even of the existence of the rest of the compound.
BB. Okay, that’s where the Slave Pens are.
The Illithids keep the hundreds or tens of hundreds of slaves here, in open-barred pens which are inset a few feet into the floor. Remember that there are Umber Hulk guards circulating all through these areas.
CC, over there, is supposedly living quarters.
It’s this island in one of the lakes. The buildings there are larger, and furnished as barracks. When the Illithids are in the Compound, they have rooms there as well as any non-Illithid help they have. They practically stack the Umber Hulks up in close quarters when they have to rest, which isn’t often. Umber Hulks can go for a long time without rest.
DD. The Warrens.
You can sort of picture it, Star thinks this area used to be one enormous room. However, the roof collapsed some time in the past, and what's left is a maze of twisty, rubble-filled passages wrapping around the bases of massive, ornately carved columns that disappear into low, uneven remains of a tumbled-down ceiling. The roof doesn't look too stable, though Star says the Illithids have no record of further collapses in the time they have used this area and believe it’s safe to walk through. Yep, she can read Illithid writing, Star says she learned it from the library on the Spelljammer when she was Captain, so she took the time to steal records while she was in there, and translated them. It looks like the only reason the Illithids use this area at all is that it provides the fastest access from the Pens to the Auction Block.
EE, this back area, is storage.
This area has a lot of small buildings and cages with supplies and other various and sundry items. Only part of it is being used -- the sections further from the Pens is still mostly rubble.
That’s it for the map. Now here are some other points that Star has worked out. Like I said, the Illithids will take great pains not to hurt the slaves and so will we. They have to be alive at the end of this, or it's all pointless.
On the other hand, the Empire is not going to move out or abandon this area unless we force them out. The Empire has put a lot of time and money into this operation, and they won't abandon it. Besides, where else are they going to find somewhere that's so hard for people to Scry into? It's a great natural defense. Negotiate from strength; fight from a place of strength, too.
If the Empire has an idea for a defense, they may be able to come up with something on short notice, and given enough time, their resources and reach are both vast. I should point out to you that's why almost no one who crosses the Empire lives for long afterward. Think about that if you feel you still want to do this.
Last, and I think this is Star’s least favorite point, although we all recognize that there may be some collateral damage to the scenery because we’re a violent crew, and want your first priority to be the destruction of the operation whatever it takes, destroying the site to save it is not a good idea, and angering the Prince by seriously affecting the surface dwellers is also not good business for The Trading Company. If he kicks us off-world, it will be that much harder to keep a close watch over the Illithids afterward.
That’s all of it that I know. I suggest you all get down to planning, talk about what you can do, what you need, and how you can work together. If you’ve been a lone operator in the past, this operation may require you to change your style and open up more than you are accustomed to doing.
Think of it this way, it’s a fair trade, because the others here will have to do the same, for you all to make the best plan to get yourselves and the slaves out alive.Janis sits down on the gold and crystal stool, takes a long pull on her ale to wet her throat after all that talking, and looks around the conference room expectantly.
